At the same time, Iran was increasingly interacting with the West.

This contact sparked an interest in democratic institutions among the members of a nascent intellectual class, which itself was a product of new, Western-style schools promoted by the shah. Encouraged by the Russian Revolution of 1905 and influenced by immigrant workers and merchants from Russian-controlled areas of Transcaucasia, the new Iranian intellectuals were, paradoxically, to find common cause with Iran's merchants and Shi'ite clergy. All aggrieved parties found an opportunity for social reform in 190506 when a series of demonstrations, held in protest over the government beating of several merchants, escalated into strikes that soon adjourned to a shrine near Tehran, which the demonstrators claimed as a bast (Persian: sanctuary). While under this traditional Iranian form of sanctuary, the government was unable to arrest or otherwise molest the demonstrators, and a series of such sanctuary protests over subsequent months, combined with wide-scale general strikes of craftsmen and merchants, forced the ailing shah to grant a constitution in 1906. The first National Consultative Assembly (the Majles) was opened in October of that year. The new constitution provided a framework for secular legislation, a new judicial code, and a free press. All these reduced the power of the royal court and religious authorities and placed more authority in the hands of the Majles, which, in turn, took a strong stand against European intervention. Although the Majles was suppressed in 1908 under Mohammad 'Ali Shah (ruled 1907 09) by the officers of the Persian Cossack Brigadethe shah's bodyguard and the most effective military force in the country at the time democracy was revived the following year under the second Majles, and Mohammad 'Ali fled to Russia. Constitutionalists also executed the country's highest-ranking cleric, Sheikh Fazlullah Nuri, who had been found guilty by a reformist tribunal of plotting to overthrow the new orderan indication that not all of Iran's religious elite were proponents of reform. In addition, as part of the secular reforms introduced by the Majles, a variety of secular schools were established during that time, including some for girls, causing significant tension between sections of the clergy that had previously advocated reform and their erstwhile intellectual allies. The end of the Majles, however, did not come as a result of internal strife. In an attempt to come to grips with Iran's ongoing financial problems, the Majles in 1911 hired another foreign financial adviser, this time an American, William Morgan Shuster, who advocated bold moves to collect revenue throughout the country. This action angered both the Russians and British, who claimed limited sovereignty in the respective spheres of influence the two powers had carved out of Iran in 1907 (the Russians in northern Iran and the Caucasus and the British along the Persian Gulf). The Russians issued an ultimatum demanding Shuster's dismissal. When the Majles refused, Russian troops advanced toward Tehran, and the regent of the young Ahmad Shah (reigned 190925) hastily dismissed Shuster and dissolved the Majles in December 1911.
Rise of Reza Khan

Until the beginning of World War I, Russia effectively ruled Iran, but, with the outbreak of hostilities, Russian troops withdrew from the north of the country, and Iranians convened the third Majles. Jubilation was short-lived, however, as the country quickly turned into a battlefield between British, German, Russian, and Turkish forces. The landed elite hoped to find in Germany a foil for the British and Russians, but change eventually was to come from the north. Following the Russian Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the new Soviet government unilaterally canceled the tsarist concessions in Iran, an action that created tremendous goodwill toward the new Soviet Union and, after the Central Powers were defeated, left Britain the sole Great Power in Iran. In 1919 the Majles, after much internal wrangling, refused a British offer of military and financial aid that effectively would have made Iran into a protectorate of Britain. The British were initially loath to withdraw from Iran but caved to international pressure and removed their advisers by 1921. In that same year British diplomats lent their support to an Iranian officer of the Persian Cossack Brigade, Reza Khan, who in the previous year had been instrumental in putting down a rebellion led by Mirza Kuchak Khan, who had sought to form an independent Soviet-style republic in Iran's northern province of Gilan. In collaboration with a political writer, Sayyid Ziya alDin Tabataba'i, Reza Khan staged a coup in 1921 and took control of all military forces in Iran. Between 1921 and 1925 Reza Khanfirst as war minister and later as prime minister under Ahmad Shahbuilt an army that was loyal solely to him. He also managed to forge political order in a country that for years had known nothing but turmoil. Initially Reza Khan wished to declare himself president in the style of Turkey's secular nationalist president, Mustafa Kemal Atatrka move fiercely opposed by the Shi'ite 'ulama'but instead he deposed the weak Ahmad Shah in 1925 and had himself crowned Reza Shah Pahlavi. The Pahlavi dynasty (192579)
Reza Shah

Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran. Keystone/FPG

During the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, educational and judicial reforms were effected that laid the basis of a modern state and reduced the influence of the religious classes. A wide range of legal affairs that had previously been the purview of Shi'ite religious courts were now either administered by secular courts or overseen by state bureaucracies, and, as a result, the status of women improved. The custom of women wearing veils was banned, the minimum age for marriage

was raised, and strict religious divorce laws (which invariably favoured the husband) were made more equitable. The number and availability of secular schools increased for both boys and girls, and the University of Tehran was established in 1934, further eroding what had once been a clerical monopoly on education. Nonetheless, Reza Shah was selective on what forms of modernization and secularization he would adopt. He banned trade unions and political parties and firmly muzzled the press. Oil concessions were first granted in 1901, during the Qajar period, and the first commercially exploitable petroleum deposits were found in 1908. Reza Shah renegotiated a number of these concessions, despite the ire these agreements raised among the Iranian people. The concessions were to remain a violent point of contention in Iran for decades to come. Reza Shah's need to expand trade, his fear of Soviet control over Iran's overland routes to Europe, and his apprehension at renewed Soviet and continued British presence in Iran drove him to expand trade with Nazi Germany in the 1930s. His refusal to abandon what he considered to be obligations to numerous Germans in Iran served as a pretext for an Anglo-Soviet invasion of his country in 1941. Intent on ensuring the safe passage of U.S. war matriel to the Soviet Union through Iran, the Allies forced Reza Shah to abdicate, placing his young son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi on the throne.
Wartime and nationalization of oil

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran, 1979. Alain Keler/Sygma

Mohammad Reza Shah succeeded to the throne in a country occupied by foreign powers, crippled by wartime inflation, and politically fragmented. Paradoxically, however, the war and occupation had brought a greater degree of economic activity, freedom of the press, and political openness than had been possible under Reza Shah. Many political parties were formed in this period, including the proBritish National Will and the pro-Soviet Tudeh (Masses) parties. These, along with a fledgling trade union movement, challenged the power of the young shah, who did not wield the absolute authority of his father. At the same time, the abdication of Reza Shah had strengthened conservative clerical factions, which had chafed under that leader's program of secularization.

Mohammad Mosaddeq, former prime minister of Iran. UPI/Bettmann Archive

Following the war, a loose coalition of nationalists, clerics, and noncommunist leftwing parties, known as the National Front, coalesced under Mohammad Mosaddeq, a career politician and lawyer who wished to reduce the powers of the monarchy and the clergy in Iran. Most important, the National Front, angered by years of foreign exploitation, wanted to regain control of Iran's natural resources, and, when Mosaddeq became prime minister in 1951, he immediately nationalized the country's oil industry. Britain, the main benefactor of Iranian oil concessions, imposed an economic embargo on Iran and pressed the International Court of Justice to consider the matter. The court, however, decided not to intervene, thereby tacitly lending its support to Iran. Despite this apparent success, Mosaddeq was under both domestic and international pressure. British leaders Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden pushed for a joint U.S.-British coup to oust Mosaddeq, and the election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the United States in November 1952 bolstered those inside the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who wished to support such an action.

This newsreel clip discusses the anti-shah demonstrations that occurred in Tehran, Iran, in Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library

Within Iran, Mosaddeq's social democratic policies, as well as the growth of the communist Tudeh Party, weakened the always-tenuous support of his few allies among Iran's religious class, whose ability to generate public support was important to Mosaddeq's government. In August 1953, following a round of political skirmishing, Mosaddeq's quarrels with the shah came to a head, and the Iranian monarch fled the country. Almost immediately, despite still-strong public support, the Mosaddeq government buckled during a coup funded by the CIA. Within a week of his departure, Mohammad Reza Shah returned to Iran and appointed a new prime minister. Nationalization under Mosaddeq had failed, and after 1954 a Western multinational consortium led by British Petroleum accelerated Iranian oil development. The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) embarked on a thorough expansion of its oilproduction capacities. NIOC also formed a petrochemical subsidiary and concluded

agreements, mainly on the basis of equal shares, with several international companies for oil exploitation outside the area of the consortium's operations. Petroleum revenues were to fuel Iran's economy for the next quarter of a century. There was no further talk of nationalization, as the shah firmly squelched subsequent political dissent within Iran. In 1957, with the aid of U.S. and Israeli intelligence services, the shah's government formed a special branch to monitor domestic dissidents. The shah's secret policethe Organization of National Security and Information, Sazman-e Amniyyat va Ettela'at-e Keshvar, known by the acronym SAVAKdeveloped into an omnipresent force within Iranian society and became a symbol of the fear by which the Pahlavi regime was to dominate Iran.
The White Revolution

The period 196063 marked a turning point in the development of the Iranian state. Industrial expansion was promoted by the Pahlavi regime, while political parties that resisted the shah's absolute consolidation of power were silenced and pushed to the margins. In 1961 the shah dissolved the 20th Majles and cleared the way for the land reform law of 1962. Under this program, the landed minority was forced to give up ownership of vast tracts of land for redistribution to small-scale cultivators. The former landlords were compensated for their loss in the form of shares of state-owned Iranian industries. Cultivators and workers were also given a share in industrial and agricultural profits, and cooperatives began to replace the large landowners in rural areas as sources of capital for irrigation, agrarian maintenance, and development. The land reforms were a mere prelude to the shah's White Revolution, a far more ambitious program of social, political, and economic reform. Put to a plebiscite and ratified in 1963, these reforms eventually redistributed land to some 2.5 million families, established literacy and health corps to benefit Iran's rural areas, further reduced the autonomy of tribal groups, and advanced social and legal reforms that furthered the emancipation and enfranchisement of women. In subsequent decades, per capita income for Iranians skyrocketed, and oil revenue fueled an enormous increase in state funding for industrial development projects.
Protest and failure

The new policies of the shah did not go unopposed, however; many Shi'ite leaders criticized the White Revolution, holding that liberalization laws concerning women were against Islamic values. More important, the shah's reforms chipped away at the traditional bases of clerical power. The development of secular courts had already reduced clerical power over law and jurisprudence, and the reforms' emphasis on secular education further eroded the former monopoly of the 'ulama' in that field. (Paradoxically, the White Revolution's Literacy Corps was to be the only reform implemented by the shah to survive the Islamic revolution, because of its intense popularity.) Most pertinent to clerical independence, land reforms initiated the breakup of huge areas previously held under charitable trust

(vaqf). These lands were administered by members of the'ulama' and formed a considerable portion of that class's revenue. In 1963 a relatively obscure member of the 'ulama' named Ruhollah Musawi Khomeinia professor of philosophy at the Fayziyyeh Madrasah in Qom who was accorded the honorific ayatollahspoke out harshly against the White Revolution's reforms. In response, the government sacked the school, killing several students, and arrested Khomeini. He was later exiled, arriving in Turkey, Iraq, and, eventually, France. During his years of exile, Khomeini stayed in intimate contact with his colleagues in Iran and completed his religio-political doctrine of velayat-e faqih (Persian: governance of the jurist), which provided the theoretical underpinnings for a Shi'ite Islamic state run by the clergy. Land reform, however, was soon in trouble. The government was unable to put in place a comprehensive support system and infrastructure that replaced the role of the landowner, who had previously provided tenants with all the basic necessities for farming. The result was a high failure rate for new farms and a subsequent flight of agricultural workers and farmers to the country's major cities, particularly Tehran, where a booming construction industry promised employment. The extended family, the traditional support system in Middle Eastern culture, deteriorated as increasing numbers of young Iranians crowded into the country's largest cities, far from home and in search of work, only to be met by high prices, isolation, and poor living conditions.
Foreign relations

Domestic reform and industrial development after 1961 were accompanied by an independent national policy in foreign relations, the principles of which were support for the United Nations (UN) and peaceful coexistence with Iran's neighbours. The latter of these principles stressed a positive approach in cementing mutually beneficial ties with other countries. Iran played a major role with Turkey and Pakistan in the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD). It also embarked on trade and cultural relations with France, West Germany, Scandinavia, eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. Relations with the United States remained close, reflected by the increasing predominance of Western culture in the country and the growing number of American advisers, who were necessary to administer the shah's ambitious economic reforms and, most important, to aid in the development of Iran's military. The Iranian army was the cornerstone of the country's foreign policy and had become, thanks to American aid and expertise, the most powerful, wellequipped force in the region and one of the largest armed forces in the world.
The growth of social discontent

Petroleum revenues continued to fuel Iran's economy in the 1970s, and in 1973 Iran concluded a new 20-year oil agreement with the consortium of Western firms led by British Petroleum. This agreement gave direct control of Iranian oil fields to the

government under the auspices of the NIOC and initiated a standard seller-buyer relationship between the NIOC and the oil companies. The shah was acutely aware of the danger of depending on a diminishing oil asset and pursued a policy of economic diversification. Iran had begun automobile production in the 1950s and by the early 1970s was exporting motor vehicles to Egypt and Yugoslavia. The government exploited the country's copper reserves, and in 1972 Iran's first steel mill began producing structural steel. Iran also invested heavily overseas and continued to press for barter agreements for the marketing of its petroleum and natural gas. This apparent success, however, veiled deep-seated problems. World monetary instability and fluctuations in Western oil consumption seriously threatened an economy that had been rapidly expanding since the early 1950s and that was still directed on a vast scale toward high-cost development programs and large military expenditures. A decade of extraordinary economic growth, heavy government spending, and a boom in oil prices led to high rates of inflation, and despite an elevated level of employment, held artificially high by loans and credits the buying power of Iranians and their overall standard of living stagnated. Prices skyrocketed as supply failed to keep up with demand, and a 1975 governmentsponsored war on high prices resulted in arrests and fines of traders and manufacturers, injuring confidence in the market. The agricultural sector, poorly managed in the years since land reform, continued to decline in productivity. The shah's reforms also had failed completely to provide any degree of political participation. The sole political outlet within Iran was the rubber-stamp Majles, dominated since the time of Mosaddeq by two parties, both of which were subservient to and sponsored by the shah. Traditional parties such as the National Front had been marginalized, while others, such as the Tudeh Party, were outlawed and forced to operate covertly. Protest all too often took the form of subversive and violent activity by groups such as the Mojahedin-e Khalq and Feda'iyan-e Khalq, organizations with both Marxist and religious tendencies. All forms of social and political protest, either from the intellectual left or the religious right, were subject to censorship, surveillance, or harassment by SAVAK, and illegal detention and torture were common. Many argued that since Iran's brief experiment with parliamentary democracy and communist politics had failed, the country had to go back to its indigenous culture. The 1953 coup against Mosaddeq had particularly incensed the intellectuals. For the first time in more than half a century, the secular intellectuals, many of whom were fascinated by the populist appeal of Ayatollah Khomeini, abandoned their project of reducing the authority and power of the Shi'ite 'ulama' and argued that, with the help of the clerics, the shah could be overthrown. In this environment, members of the National Front, the Tudeh Party, and their various splinter groups now joined the 'ulama' in a broad opposition to the shah's regime. Khomeini had continued to preach in exile about the evils of the Pahlavi regime, accusing the shah of irreligion and subservience to foreign powers. Thousands of tapes and print copies of the ayatollah's speeches were smuggled back into Iran during the 1970s as an increasing number of unemployed and

working-poor Iraniansmostly new immigrants from the countryside, who were disenchanted by the cultural vacuum of modern urban Iran turned to the 'ulama' for guidance. The shah's dependence on the United States, his close ties with Israelthen engaged in extended hostilities with the overwhelmingly Muslim Arab statesand his regime's ill-considered economic policies served to fuel the potency of dissident rhetoric with the masses.